由RMA建筑事务所设计的LilavatiLalbhai图书馆
LilavatiLalbhai Library by RMA Architects

由专筑网张摄僧，李韧编译

印度艾哈迈达巴德（Ahmedabad）的环境规划和技术中心（CEPT）成立于20世纪60年代，它就在曾于那里学习过的几代建筑师的心中占据了特别的位置，由现已90岁的印度著名建筑师、CEPT第一任负责人巴克里希纳•多西（Balkrishna Doshi）设计，同时他也是2018年普利兹克建筑奖得主。

他的大部分建造于20世纪70年代的建筑群得到了勒•柯布西耶（Le Corbusier）和路易斯•康（Louis Kahn）的高度重视，这两位建筑大师在印度西部城市留下了诸多优秀建筑作品。CEPT的校友和RMA建筑事务所的创始人Rahul Mehrotra 认为建筑群外露的砖块和混凝土表现出了坚实严谨的结构逻辑。

他在孟买和波士顿的公司受邀请建立CEPT的新LilavatiLalbhai图书馆。这个图书馆在去年十月间开放。

The Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT), in Ahmedabad holds a special place in the hearts and minds of the generations of architects who have studied there since the school’s beginnings in the early 1960s. Designed by famed Indian architect Balkrishna Doshi, now age 90, who served as the CEPT’s first director, the collection of mostly 1970s buildings are highly indebted to Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn—who both left their mark on the western Indian city. The complex is exposed brick and concrete and has an expressed solidity and rigorous structural logic, according to Rahul Mehrotra, a CEPT alum and founder of RMA Architects. His Mumbai- and Boston-based firm was invited to build CEPT’s new LilavatiLalbhai Library, which opened this past October.



校园里的第一栋建筑物并不是由Doshi 设计，这受到了外界的质疑 。因为Mehrotra主要以在本国的建筑作品而闻名，甚至他还在巴基斯坦完成了一所房子，并在巴塞尔为诺华（Novartis）完成了一座实验室和办公楼。

Mehrotra承认CEPT让他觉得有点忧虑，因为他想设计得尽可能地完美。因此，他的图书馆方案向印度现代大师以及艾哈迈达巴德丰富的中世纪遗产致敬。与此同时，它重塑了古老的建筑理念。Mehrotra设计的图书馆不超过CEPT现有的三层楼高的建筑物，但为了在有限的场地内布置所需要的30,000平方英尺（2787.1平方米）的方案，他消隐了一半的建筑物。

建筑的中央核心书厅向下延伸至地下40英尺（12.2米），被自习室围绕着，底部设有档案馆。这一精巧的策略为图书馆在炎热的气候中提供了良好的地热优势。三层以上的空间作为展示空间和阅览室。为了适应这种安排，RMA团队创建了类似于建筑物内的建筑物的套盒构造：一个带钢结构和石膏板及玻璃表层的内盒，以及一个直立于极具雕塑感的混凝土基座之上的可手动操作的百叶窗所限定的外盒。

Designing the first structure on campus not by Doshi was “intimidating, to say the least,” says Mehrotra, known primarily for his work in his native country, though he has also completed a house in Pakistan and a lab and office building in Basel for Novartis. Mehrotra confesses that the CEPT commission made him “a bit anxious about getting it as right as possible.” Accordingly, his library scheme pays homage to the Indian Modern master, as well as Ahmedabad’s rich midcentury heritage. But, at the same time, it reinvents the older architectural ideas. Mehrotra made the library no higher than CEPT’s existing buildings—all three stories tall—but in order to fit the required 30,000-square-foot program on the constrained site, he submerged half of the building. A central book core, surrounded by study carrels, with archives at the base, extends almost 40 feet down into the ground, a strategy that provides a geothermal advantage in the hot climate. The three stories above grade house exhibition spaces and reading rooms. To accommodate this arrangement, the RMA team created something that resembles a building within a building: an inner one with a steel structure and a skin of drywall and glass, and an outer one defined by manually operated shutters, atop a sculptural concrete base.



百叶窗的功能与位于仅几英里距离之外的勒•柯布西耶工厂业主协会大楼的Bills soleil功能相同。但新图书馆的立面与20世纪50年代的结构完全不同，所用材料也与周围校园建筑物相差甚远。不只是静态的混凝土或砖石元素，Mehrotra的图书馆有精致的胶合板板条，可以调整和移动，以减轻太阳的辐射，同时可以让微风吹入。这样它就像是一座旅行神殿般的建筑物，在这座神殿中，各层门被逐一打开，每一个空间都在不断的叙述中揭示不同的情节。

The shutters serve the same function as the brisesoleil on Le Corbusier’s Mill Owners’ Association Building located just a few miles away. But the new library’s outer shell is of a completely different character than that of the 1950s structure, as well as a departure from the material palette of the surrounding campus buildings. Instead of static concrete elements, or the solidity of brick, Mehrotra’s library has delicate plywood slats that can be adjusted and shifted to mitigate the sun or let the breezes in. The result is a building much like a kaavad—a traveling shrine, in which layers of doors are opened, each revealing a different episode in a continuous narrative.



学校有计划地将图书馆的这种“双层立面”用作学生们的学习工具，研究其细节，监督其运作，以及测量其在不同季节和一天之中的光照与温度情况。无需特殊的数据处理来证明其鳍状的外立面和屋顶天窗的有效性，天窗使得日光深入到图书馆，几乎可以照到最底层。当然，太阳照亮了更加透明的高层地板，大楼似乎飞入了树梢，可供学生们在婆娑斑影的枝叶和鸣叫嬉戏的鸟类之间畅游书海。

There are plans for the school to use this double skin as a learning tool, studying the details, monitoring its operations, and measuring light levels and temperatures in different seasons and throughout the course of the day. No special documentation process is needed, however, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the finned facades, along with skylights on the roof, which bring daylight deep into the library, reaching almost to its lowest level. The sun, of course, readily illuminates the more transparent abovegrade floors, where the building seems to fly into the trees and students can study amid the leaves and the birds.



在图书馆中有些空间是开放式，比如一个高层露台，占据了内外表皮之间的空隙区域，它为轻松的会议和社交活动提供了一个庇护的场所。它的闲适气氛也从建筑物中流淌而出：人们以同样低调的方式使用外部区域，在基地深色阴影的门槛上闲聊、相互调侃，吃午餐等等。很明显，学生们已经来到了属于自己的图书馆。通过这种方式，这座充满活力的建筑为校园建立了一个新的核心。

Some spaces are literally open to the campus, such as an upper-level terrace that occupies the interstitial zone between the outer and inner shells. It offers a sheltered spot for relaxed meetings and socializing. The informality flows out of the building too, with people using its exterior areas in a similarly low-key way—lounging on the deep, shaded sills of the base, chatting with each other, and eating lunch. It is clear that the students have taken to the library, making it their own. And in this way, the youthful building establishes a new centrifugal core for its storied campus.



由Kaiwan Mehta报道。Mehta是DOMUS India的孟买建筑理论家、教育家、研究员和执行编辑。

With reporting by Kaiwan Mehta. Mehta is a Mumbai-based architecture theorist, educator, researcher, and managing editor of DOMUS India.











项目信息：
建筑设计：RMA Architects — Rahul Mehrotra：创始人； Robert Stephens, Payal Patel, principals; Prashant Saudagar：合作者
校园建筑设计：Aakruti Architects — Dilip Patel：负责人
工程设计：N.K. Shah Architects & Structural Consultants (structural); ARKK Consulting (m/e/p)
总承包商：PSP Projects
客户：CEPT University
闭合器：Dorma
幕墙设计：Saint-Gobain
悬架网格设计：Hunter Douglas
油漆粉刷：Oikos
电梯供应商：Infinity Elevators

Architect: RMA Architects — Rahul Mehrotra, founder and principal; Robert Stephens, Payal Patel, principals; Prashant Saudagar, production associate
Campus Architect: Aakruti Architects — Dilip Patel, principal
Engineers: N.K. Shah Architects & Structural Consultants (structural); ARKK Consulting (m/e/p)
General contractor: PSP Projects
Client: CEPT University
Closers: Dorma
Glazing: Saint-Gobain
Suspension Grid: Hunter Douglas
Paints and Stains: Oikos
Elevators: Infinity Elevators